


this is not about tomorrow

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Skoulson RomFest 2k14, Skye's father - Freeform, skoulsonfest2k14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2213376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye is returned to them - but her father's words are still all she can think about.</p>
<p>(Written for the Skoulson RomFest 2k14 - Prompt: Skye's father)</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not about tomorrow

He crouches besides her.

Her eyes look tired, old.

It didn't take him too long to find her, which Skye guesses was the point.

She's returned but he doesn't know what went on. She's returned but he had no part in it. The wounds from the other day barely healed, the panic of not knowing where she was barely subdued.

"You found me," she says, smiling, but there's something dim and grim about that smile. It sends a shiver down his spine.

She's sitting under one of the desks in the lab, knees drawn under his chin, arms wrapped around her legs. After two days of absence Coulson still looks at her like it's a miracle he can do just that.

"What are you doing down here?" he asks gently. If she needs to go around hiding under desks he's just fucking going to let her.

Skye leans back, pressing the back of her head against the metal panel. 

"I was adopted into this family once... One of the last ones, I was thirteen, fourteen. They had a huge house. Really huge. Loaded, these people were. They had this beautiful marble counter on the kitchen, an island. It was the perfect place to hide for hours and hours, big enough and quiet and for some reason no one ever thought to look there. I was safe there. It was good."

He touches his fingers to her forearm, gingerly, scared she's in shock and doesn't want to be touched. Skye doesn't seem to mind. He still can't believe there's not a scratch on her.

"Skye... Why did you have to hide in your own house when you were thirteen?"

He's too perceptive. Sometimes that annoys her about him.

Her expression goes soft, full of something like pity for him; she touches his cheek, fingertips brushing gently against the memory of a recent bruise. She lets her hand fall to her lap again.

"Coulson. Not now."

He nods. "Okay."

She's back, it should be enough. It is enough. He's still touching her arm. It should be enough.

"What happened?" he asks.

"Everything happened."

"Your father."

Her lips curl into an ugly smirk. "Daddy dearest."

"The blood?"

She blinks at him; the first time she did was wash it away, but of course he'd notice. She realizes she's been hiding from Coulson, not the team. Picking a place he would easily find, but hiding from him anyway.

"Not mine. He thought _a demostration_ was in order. Took one of Quinn's bodyguards and..."

She purses her lips together. Anger, he can read. He's not used to seeing Skye actively _hate_ like this. She's not meeting his eyes.

She can't tell him everything. The details. She can't push that horror onto him. Or how her father told her she was capable of the very same things herself, that she used that power once.

"A demonstration?" he asks.

"Of what he can do. Of what he was going to do."

"Skye..." he reaches his hand to her face again but this time she pushes it away.

"No." She closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them again she looks ten years older. "He knows about the team, everything. Raina has been monitoring me. She's told him things..."

"Whatever he wants from us –"

She lets out a laugh, low and joyless.

"He doesn't want anything from you. He doesn't want anything. He wants you dead, all of you."

Coulson recoils a bit. Magic and gods and monsters again. What can he do against that? He's hilariously powerless. He's just a man, and a broken one at that. What on earth can he give her that's worth anything?

"All of us?"

"I don't know, I think he believes humanity has tainted me somehow and that's the only way to return me to... But no, he just wants to see me in pain, he doesn't care, he just wants to hurt me. And he will."

"Skye."

"No, Coulson, no." She grits her teeth.

"Why did he let you go?" he asks her.

She snorts. "To scare me. So I'd have first row tickets to the slaughter – your slaughter – and I could never know exactly when he's coming for us, could never prepare for it. To make me lose my mind."

"I don't understand."

"I took something from him, when I was a baby. I tried to protect the village, the people who were hiding me from my parents. I did something to him and the only way to fix it is to –"

"Kill you." She nods. Coulson doesn't like the resigned expression on her face. Skye is fight, fight against insurmountable odds. If Skye gives up what's the rest of the world to do? If Skye gives up he will have to fight for her. "We won't let that happen. You _know_ that."

She turns to look at him again. Sweet, kind, foolish Coulson. She had put him in danger the first time she saw him. She wants to send him away somewhere safer, gentler. But she is selfish, she doesn't want him to leave her.

She speaks her father's words: " _I will kill them all_ , he said. And then he said your names, one by one. He knows, everything."

"I'm not scared," Coulson says.

He is, but not of dying at the hands of an alien serial killer. He is scared of that, yes, but not for _himself_. He can't let anyone take something else from Skye. And he knows he is not much and Skye might not want him but she _has him_ and he is not going to let anyone take that from her.

Skye rests her left hand on his chest, right above where she imagines his scar would be.

"You should be. _You_ should be."

"What do you mean?"

"He said he was going to leave you for last, like the dessert at the end of an exquisite banquet," she says in a broken voice. She knows this is admitting too much, but at this point she doesn't care about the consequences. "He said he was going to make your death particularly slow and painful. He knew what he was doing, telling me that – Raina must have talked _a lot_."

Coulson frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing," she says, shaking her head.

 

+

 

He takes her to her room.

While Skye wants this day to end, she is afraid of going to bed. She wants this little walk across the Playground to go on forever. She's afraid of her room. Above all else, she's afraid of being on her own. She doesn't know how to tell Coulson that. 

Her whole body is tense, he can see when he follows her to her room. He wants to reach out and touch her, make her relax somehow, but he wouldn't know how. He doesn't know how to make anything better.

When they reach her door Skye stares at the floor, turning to not look at Coulson.

"Nothing is going to happen," he says, a feeble attempt but he has to try.

"You keep saying that," she points out.

"I will keep saying that. Until you believe me."

She leans on the doorframe, feeling suddenly more tired than when she was trying to escape her father.

Coulson gives the inside of her room a look, like he's searching for something which might help him.

"Are you going to be okay on your own tonight?" he asks.

He's giving her an exit and, she's not stupid, she knows he doesn't _want_ to leave her here alone. But she thinks it's safer this way. The more time she spends with Coulson the greater the danger – even though that doesn't matter now, the damage is already done. 

She nods.

"I don't want you to be alone if you –"

"It's okay, Coulson," she says, sharp and frustrated. "I'm fine. You can stop with the concerned and caring boss act."

He frowns. "You're not fine and it's not an act."

"No, I know. Sorry. Thank you."

He brushes the palm of his hand along her shoulder.

"It's okay. You can also yell at me if you want. I promise I won't court-martial you. _This time_."

That almost, _almost_ works. She almost smiles.

"Good night, Coulson," she says.

She keeps saying his name like it means something, like she needs to.

He lets her go.

He regrets it immediately.

" _Skye_." She turns around, a little too quickly, a little too eagerly. "What did you mean before when you said _Raina must have talked a lot_?"

"That's not –" she starts to explain. "Forget about that part."

He's willing to beg and he realizes how selfish that is, how fucking selfish and useless it is, today of all days. He tries to clamp his jaw shut, but he _is_ selfish.

" _Please_ , Skye. I need to know. What did you mean?"

She takes his head in her hands, feeling how hot the skin on his cheeks and temples are, almost feverish – but maybe just anticipation and nerves and fear, now that she knows he might be feeling all those things. She hears him hold his breath.

Her hands slide, until Skye has her arms wrapped around his neck and her face buried in the collar of his shirt.

The numbness starts to wear off this very minute – all day she has been stunned, her senses dulled. They come back. She can smell Coulson's aftershave, the hint of disinfectant from his wounds. She can feel the rough skin of his unshaven face against her own. She can feel him catch his breath. She can hear the little noise of surprise he makes when she holds him tighter, squeezing his whole body.

For a moment he's taken aback in a moment of deja-vu, another hug which overwhelmed him, another moment of his hand stiff at the small of her back; but even then Skye wasn't holding on so tightly, holding on for dear life. And this time he can get through to the other side of his feelings and hold her back. He holds her back.

"I meant somehow they must have known I can't lose you," she tells him.

He pushes her away. She understands it's not to stop her – he just wants to see her face.

He moves his hand to her face, holding her at a distance. He is waiting for any sign of hesitation – any intimation that she doesn't want this, or she doesn't want this _tonight_. There's none. Coulson knows this is a mess, he knows he's probably taking advantage of Skye's situation, he knows how much she needs it, too, he knows he can't help himself. He moves to kiss her.

She puts her hand up to his mouth before he gets to touch hers, fingers on his lips, stopping him.

"Wait."

He brushes his thumb across her cheek, almost relieved.

"I feel bad just thinking about it, with all you've been through. But I can't stop thinking about it. About you."

He doesn't understand it. Skye wants him to be more scared. Skye wants him to be scared of her.

"I come from a monster. A _murderous_ monster. Doesn't that bother you a bit?"

"No," he replies. "You're you. That's all. Where you come from, the blood flowing through your veins, that's not you." Skye lets out a breath, nodding in his hands. "And don't forget I have some of that blood inside me as well."

He meant it as something light, a gesture of solidarity, but her face falls a bit, the shadow of something crossing her glance.

"What?"

"Do you think...?" she starts, touching her fingers against the back of his hand, feeling for his pulse. "The GH-325... do you think that's why I...? Why _we_...?"

Coulson shakes his head. "No. That's not why. This? It's just us."

She gives him a weak smile but a fierce look. "Good. Because I'm tired of everything in my life being already decided for me."

"Yeah, me too," he says, smiling back, touching their foreheads together for a moment. He's glad that if there is only one thing in his life he has genuinely chosen himself that one thing turned out to be Skye. He wishes he could tell her that. 

She seems to know what he is thinking – it's very probable she does, anyway. It's Skye, after all.

"Okay, okay," she mutters, nodding again. "I want you to kiss me now."

He does. Touching his lips very softly to hers at first, until her body relaxes and she instinctively sways against his body. His hands move of their own volition, fearfully wrapping around her waist. He doesn't want to touch too much too soon. Not just for Skye, but for himself. He doesn't think he could stand it. On the other hand, nothing could be enough. She opens her mouth under his, brushing her teeth across his lip.

He's perfect, she thinks, except she wishes his hands were holding her tighter, touching her _more_.

They break the kiss eventually (very eventually, both frustrated that it's not getting deeper so far), pulling away at the same time. Coulson wants to ask if she is okay, but there's been enough of that today, she might get pissed.

She presses her palm against his heart. She can feel it racing nervously under her touch. He's nervous or excited. It makes her a bit happy. It makes her a bit careful. She knows Coulson's heart doesn't have the best track record, safety-wise, and now there's an alien psycho bent on killing him out there and it's her fault.

"I don't want you to get hurt anymore," she tells him. "I want to protect you."

"You've always protected me. This isn't going to be any different."

She grabs his shoulders, tilting her head a bit to kiss him at the right angle. Coulson feels anchored. Slow, open-mouthed kisses, he lets her set the rhythm.

The kiss deepens.

This time Skye pulls back, way too soon. She grabs his arms, it takes him longer to stop touching her face than it takes him to stop kissing her. He looks at her, questioning. His eyes look so young and bright and pure, Skye gets distracted for a moment.

"What?" Coulson struggles against the corners of his lips curling into a smile. He's just been kissing Skye. The world outside is falling down in the most unexpected fashion and he can get killed tomorrow but he has just been kissing Skye.

"Can we go to your room?" she asks.

"Yes. Why?"

Skye feels a little silly about it but she wants to be where he is; she wants his bed and the sheets on his bed and his shelves full of wonderfully romantic gadgets and his closet full of his tailored suits. She wants to be a part of that, if only for one night.

"It's just that I – I don't feel like being in my room right now, with my stuff. I want to be surronded by your stuff. I know it sounds weird. Is that okay?"

He nods, kissing the corner of her mouth.

"Whatever you want," he says, taking her hand in his, willing to take her away from whatever it is she fears; loneliness, pain, death. He could outrun them all for Skye.

"You're very good at that," she comments.

"What?"

She lifts their hands entwined together. " _This_."

Not really, he thinks, but he's willing to try.

He leads the way, looking at her from time to time from over his shoulder, like she might just disappear if he doesn't. Skye smiles at the gesture, draws her fingernails across his palm to reassure him. Their whole world might end tomorrow but for now? She's pretty excited for next few minutes of her life.


End file.
